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PONE-D-21-08775

Effect of seed hydro-priming durations on germination and seedling growth of bitter gourd (Momordica charantia)

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Adhikari,

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PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Comments

The authors found in the experiment, seed hydro-priming was found to be effective for increasing germination and seedling growth in bitter gourd only on the basis of some morphological parameters. However, there is a space to add more morphological parameters to conclude the results. For publication in such prestigious journal, I recommend major revisions.

Line 21. In abstract Please mention all the priming durations otherwise abstract will not be self-explanatory. Before going to results its need to specify the methods adopted in the study.

Line 36. The crop is of high economic and nutritional importance. Please rewrite the sentence.

The introduction is poorly citied. For instance, in case of hydro priming only one citation is written. However, recently many work has been conducting on priming and hydro-priming. Please cite more recent reference and I think also space for writing some introductory notes on priming before hydro-priming.

Authors should more careful on grammatical mistakes in the introduction.

Line 91-92 Authors mentioned no significant difference was found after 36 hours of hydro-priming as shown in Fig 1. But in figure its looks not clear because there is no sign of statistical analysis.

The experiments lack of some data such as minerals homeostasis uptake data, water related traits, can be checked because author discussed priming can be attributed to an increased nutrient usage capacity that allows for a higher relative growth rate and better plant water status regulation. Also, many others morphological parameters can be added.

In the discussion, results did not discusses properly authors only focus the literature. Discussion section should be more clarified with discussions and results.

Overall, the writing lack of many references, more literature should be added. On the other hand, climatic condition in the experiment time was an important factor. However, there is no information about climatic condition of the experimental field. Moreover, one trial in the field for one year is not sufficient to conclude, it needs at least 2-3 trial on 2-3 consecutive years.

Reviewer #2: 1. Give reference for the statement given on line number 43-44.

2. Please provide experimental site details i.e. location, soil, weather etc at the beginning of materials and methods.

3. Mention source of the seed, its initial germination percentage and class of the seed at line number 67.

4. The formula given on line number 71 seems wrong. It should be weight of seed after priming - weight of seed before priming/weight of seed before priming.

5. A reference of Table 7 has been given on line number 130 however there is no Table 7 in the whole text.

6. Give reference for this statement given on line 172-174.

7. Why don’t you recommend 36 hours seed priming instead of 48 hours which has similar results in most cases?

8. Most of the references are old which can be replaced by latest ones.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Mohammad Saidur Rhaman

Reviewer #2: Yes: Prof. Dr. Muhammad Arif

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Comments_Saidur_D-21-08775.docx

Effect of seed hydro-priming durations on germination and seedling growth of bitter gourd (Momordica charantia)

PONE-D-21-08775R1

Dear Dr. Adhikari,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

Craig Eliot Coleman, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Mohammad Saidur Rhaman